A discussion of projects under consideration brought forth by the Fort Thomas City Council Recreation and Finance committees at the council’s March meeting sparked discussion on communications, transparency and the process of city project planning.
Communications concerns
Some members of the community voiced concerns about the discussion underway by the city’s Planning and Zoning commission on an overhaul of the city’s zoning ordinance. As part of the implementation of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, the commission is examining the zoning ordinance with an eye toward updating it in light of the plan goals.
As part of this examination, the planning commission brought in CT Consultants to take a look at zoning and to share ideas and recommendations. At one recent planning meeting, the consultant shared information about form-based and traditional zoning.
Residents Joan Ferris and Peggy Maggio shared concerns about changes proposed by the consultant, but also brought up a lack of knowledge about and input into the city planning process. They both noted difficulty in finding information about the Planning and Zoning discussions taking place.
City Administrator Ron Dill responded that the Planning and Zoning meetings are public and all are invited. He explained that form-based code was a suggestion from the consultant, but that commissioners were in an exploratory phase that would last throughout the rest of this year. Once their study was complete, he said, Planning and Zoning would hold a public forum to discuss ideas and proposals with the community.
Website navigation
His response sparked a discussion of the city’s website and the difficulty some residents have had in finding when meetings are happening. Maggio noted that information about the zoning project had been posted but was difficult to find on the website. She walked the council through pages and tabs to try to find information about the zoning ordinance discussion and when meetings take place.
After following links on three pages, she said, “Nowhere does it say on any of these places so far, when these meetings are taking place…The community can only give input if the community knows what’s going on.”
Improvements to the city’s website and communication have been under ongoing discussion since at least 2019. Council members agreed more could be done to share meetings information.
Since the March city council meeting, the upcoming Planning and Zoning meeting has been added to the city calendar as have other city board and commission meetings. These can be found at ftthomas.org/events. Dill noted that adding council committee meetings to the calendar was more difficult because these do not meet on a regular basis, and often are announced with short notice.
Council member Ben Pendery, chair of the Finance Committee, urged interested residents to check the calendar often for the committee meetings but also to reach out the committee chairs and members to get information on the upcoming committee meetings.
Plans for ARPA funds
Pendery gave a report and recommendations from the Finance Committee.
The city has received the first half of its funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, he said. The funds have specific guidelines about how the money can be used and a deadline for use of the funds. Money must be designated by December 31, 2024, and returned if not spent by December 31, 2026. The total of the city’s funds comes to $4.2 million.
The task of the committee, said Pendery, has been to begin the process of discussion and identification of projects that might be funded under ARPA. He presented a list of projects recommended for the initial use of the funds, most of which have already been identified as community needs, he said.
The committee worked from a spreadsheet identifying several projects that would fall into one of the broad expenditure categories outlined in the act — public health, addressing negative impact from the pandemic, services to disproportionately affected communities, premium pay for employees, infrastructure, revenue replacement and administrative costs.
Here is the preliminary list of initial projects with estimated costs:
Business grant programs – total: $360,000
- Grow Grant (support for outdoor improvements and façades), doubling its funds to $120,000
- Implementing a similar program to support indoor improvements, $120,000
- Rent assistance to businesses opening or relocating to Fort Thomas, $120,000
Projects
- Replacement of main playground structure at Tower Park. This would include a splash/spray ground element and reworking of the site to be ADA compliant, $809,000.
- Resurfacing and redevelopment of the newly acquired city parking at 18 North Fort Thomas Avenue, $235,000.
- The committee also discussed a plan to provide premium pay to city employees. This discussion was tabled for further research, Pendery noted.
Council reacts
Council member Ken Bowman noted that most of the projects on the Finance Committee list had been discussed at council before, but he asked that two of the business grants, the grants for indoor improvements and for rent subsidies, be tabled until the next council meeting. These had not been discussed before, he said, and information was not available to council until earlier that day.
He made the motion to accept the committee’s recommendation except for the two business grant programs.
The motion passed by council five to one, with Adam Blau dissenting.
“I voted no to accept the report from finance, which was earmarking over 1 million dollars in city spending,” Blau said. “None of these items were listed specifically on the city agenda and were all grouped as ‘report from finance committee.’ I believe the public should have been made aware of these so they could provide their input.”
He echoed Bowman’s concern that some of the business grants were shared with council members only a few hours before the meeting and said that he has not seen final plans for the other projects on the list.
“I have no problems with some of these projects but, cannot in good faith vote yes to release the funds without all the information and the public being made aware,” he said.
Pendery said, “We all agree we want the best use of these funds. Our process to identify projects was two-fold — One, how do we benefit the greatest amount of people and two, how do we have a lasting impact, the longest impact we can?”
He continued, “These are the most shovel ready. Tower Park [playground equipment] has been in play for a long time, and we want to get started on these things that can benefit the community as a whole … Going forward, we have a large chunk of money that we are going to have to decide how to spend … It’s going to be an ongoing discussion for a couple years to come.”